Raids Into Pakistan: October Surprise+?
Or:
How Bush Can Help McCain Even Without Getting OBL

Sullivan directs us to Scott Horton's piece in Harper's. Why the sudden raids into Pakistan? Everyone with eyes to see knows at least part of the answer:

A. Serious attempts, at long last, to get OBL are serious attempts to engineer an October surprise to give the win to McCain.

But Horton also adds:

B. Now that Musharraf is gone, the administration is willing to conduct the raids. This may be at least in part because the administration is more willing to destabilize the current, more democratic government than it was to destabilize the previous, authoritarian government. This is consistent with things we know about the administration's approach to foreign policy.

But I'd add, more importantly:

C. Aside from A, there's another way for McCain to win this: if Pakistan reacts strongly against our raids, McCain can say, roughly: "See? Those raids were exactly what Obama recommended. Obama's policy failed. And: you can see how I'm different from both Obama and Bush on this."

C might be almost as big a win for McCain as A.

It's worth noting, of course, that this is not the policy that Obama advocated. Obama advocated rare, targeted raids in light of actionable intelligence about very high-level AQ targets--not routine raids that seem almost calculated to stir up the hornets' nest.

Er...do I sound as paranoid to y'all as I'm starting to sound to myself?